The MTV music video awards will be held on Sunday, putting this under-rated genre in the spotlight. Videos are inseparable from music in the digital age and the best examples deserve to be taken seriously as works of art.

In 1981, MTV was launched with a woman in a tinsel wig being beamed to Earth (well, she actually slid awkwardly down a plastic tube) to join men in shiny suits playing wood-grained synthesisers. The Buggles…